If Chambers is here, can Kriens be far behind?

Shyamanuja Das (Voice n Data)

NEW DELHI: Juniper is literally leaving no stone unturned to be on par with

Cisco. And we are not talking about the high-speed router market share. This

time, it is about the plans for their CEO’s visit to India.

Yes, Scott Kriens, CEO of Juniper Networks, will be in India less than a week

after John Chambers, the Cisco CEO, flies out of the country. Kriens is on a

two-day business visit to India on 22-23 January. He will be in Mumbai on 22nd

and in New Delhi on the 23rd. Though the exact itinerary of Kriens' visit is not

known, he is likely to meet the Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and

the minister for information technology Pramod Mahajan in New Delhi. Again,

something that Chambers did.

Juniper Networks has been fast snatching market share from Cisco in the core

router segment. Leading communication technology research firm Dell'Oro Group

estimated that Juniper raised its market share from 22.5 per cent in the second

quarter of 2000 to 30 percent in the third quarter. Cisco's market share in the

same period dropped from 75 per cent in the second quarter to 68 per cent in the

third. Analysts feel Juniper's share will continue to grow through 2001.